PLAY Portraits: Seed by Seed

(Winner of the "Creative Gaming Award" - Most Innovative Newcomer, at the PLAY Festival 2019)

Was "Pile Up" the first project you worked on?

Seed by Seed: So it's the first project we did as a studio and it was a school project, we worked on it for six months and it worked out really well so we tried to set it up as a professional project.

In which parts of the development did you take part?

SBS: So we split up the tasks and had seven people in the studio. Programmers, graphic designers and people who did the writing of the story. But we really try to collect the ideas as a team. So when we are brainstorming everyone can add more ideas and the designers try to put together all the main ideas and make them fit to each other.

Which experiences did you take from the project? Is there anything that you would like to share with other young developers that are getting started with their own project?

SBS: What I always say to my colleagues is: When you have problems or questions, go and ask other developers. You can find many platforms for exchange in the internet and developers that are already working on projects and they are often friendly and want to help others. So you don´t need to do the same mistake that three other people before you already did. It can save you a lot of time, to ask others and connect with the community. So I would say: Do not hesitate to ask others for help.

Additionally, try to find others to start a project with. There are many people with different experiences and in our team, it was also always a great get together. Never try to start it all alone.

RTP: Are there other games or things that inspired you within your work?

SBS: If you start our game, you will definitely see that we are inspired by old Nintendo games and Nintendo history. Mario is a big thing for us, or Zelda. But you can also see that games like “Little Big Planet” with the crafty looks were a big inspiration for us for the design of “PileUp”.

In addition, it was very important for us to make a real multiplayer title because videogames nowadays often lack of the multiplayer possibility.

RTP: Are there already projects for the future?

SBS: Yes, of course, “PileUp” was the first game of our studio but we are definitely heading up to do some more projects. We still have many ideas but right now, we are more brainstorming what the next project will be like.

Maybe we will do smaller games because “PileUp” was a very ambitious game to be our first project and for all the people of the studio it was quite hard to do. But we also learned a lot of stuff with the developing of the game. Especially that it always takes longer than you expect. So maybe smaller games first but also family friendly games and games that bring people together.

RTP: What experiences do you take home from the PLAY Festival?

SBS: It is cool for us, we are here for the first time and the team is taking care of everything. We just needed to get here, the game was already installed, and it was comfortable for us as developers. We also like the games in the exhibition and the theme that they choose.

There are many different people here that are playing our game and it is interesting for us to see which experiences they are making and how they get along with the game. Also, there are families, children but also many adults that have fun with “PileUp”. It is always cool to see your game being played. And to see how the players are discovering new level and aspects of the game step by step. As a developer, you also learn many things when people play your game. This is maybe another tip for developer: always make sure your game is tested very early so you can see where the people are having trouble and where you need to fix something.